Safety, Generous Doctors, and Enabling Parents: A Perfect Recipe of Justifications for College Students’ Nonmedical Use of Prescription Painkillers

Abstract

National data indicate that prescription painkillers are the second most commonly misused prescription drug on college campuses. Although much research has focused on the motivations given for the nonmedical use of these drugs, few studies explore justifications for use. This article fills that gap by explicating the justifications college students incite to defend their nonmedical use of these drugs. Drawing on semistructured interviews with students ( N = 76) from a large public northwestern university, inductive analysis uncovered social learning theories of crime, more specifically Sykes and Matza’s neutralization theory, as helping to inform students’ justifications for use. These justifications were combined to form two broad justification categories: “the safety factor” and “authoritative enabling.” Given that justifications helped students to resolve any guilt, shame, or stigma associated with their deviant use of prescription painkillers, it is important that future research continue to explore and disentangle motivations from justifications.